Support Plans - Suggestion
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Hopefully this is the right place to post this question.
I bought my SG-3100 last year, in May, and I love it. I've had to interact with support once or twice, and it was a great experience.
Once I get an appliance up and running, I rarely need support. Like, ever.
I've been working in paid support since the late 80's, and I'm capable of doing things like reading manuals, hooking up serial consoles, and doing the basic Tier 1 through Tier 2 support without actually engaging with 'vendor support.' I've also been a Tier 3 third-party aftermarket support provider for...awhile, on and off.
Let me get to the point:
For people who have, for example, the SG-3100 appliance, looking at the two support offerings, it's literally 100% of the cost, per year, for the least expensive service offering.
I realize that's 24/7, phone and email, and that's great.
However....
For people like me who only call once a year, or never, I'd rather spend, like, $100 a year on a support plan that is 5/8, perhaps one that's chat/email only. (Or whatever's the cheapest for the company to deliver.)
So when I have an actual issue, caused by Netgate development (21.02 crashed my firewall, upgrading to the hotfix "bricked" it, to the point where I had to power cycle it to bring it back up), I'd like to know I have someone who can help me out (at Netgate, privately, not in the forums) during normal business hours.
I realize that some people need 24/7 and that's fine.
But if I had some level of support, I could wait until the 5/8 support hours (M-F 8a-5p or whatever), and contact Netgate if, say, a hotfix upgrade leaves me in a questionable state, with my firewall down, during business hours.
A lot of folks don't want to spend $400 per year for support, for a $400 appliance. But $100? Maybe.
Have you considered a discounted support tier? Maybe 5/8 with a 2 to 4 hour response time? I'm not saying offer it for free, but $100 feels okay, $200 is pushing it, $400 is...outlandish for a home user.
Anyway, please feel free to move this if it needs to be moved somewhere. Thanks!
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Oh, also, I just realized, when I suggested $100, I did not mean extended warranty, I just meant phone/chat support.
Maybe $100 gets you phone/chat support, and $200 gets you phone/chat support and a one year extended warranty?
For people like me who have everything connected to a UPS and a whole-home surge protector, our devices last years longer than they normally would in the average home.
I don't usually need an extended warranty for a well-built device.
(Netgate's devices are all well-built.)
So for me, the $100 suggested phone/chat support package would be awesome and affordable.
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Thanks for the suggestions, always appreciated. I'll pass those to the people making those decisions.
Over the years everything has been considered. There's always a compromise to be made.
Steve
